Breath short, Kael opened his eyes beneath a radiant sky.

  He remained lying there for several minutes, his gaze lost in the flawless blue, the memory of his dream still lingering behind his eyelids.

  It had been the Garden of Confluences… but different.

  The colors, the voices, the air… everything had carried the unreal brilliance of a world too beautiful to last.

  He slowly pushed himself up and sat at the edge of the couch, his feet sinking into the soft, warm grass.

  His gaze shifted toward Dubium.

  The old man was pacing nervously beside the cabin, The Bible in hand. His brow was furrowed, his movements hurried, almost compulsive.

  Kael frowned, surprised.

  “What are you doing, Dubium?”

  The man stopped abruptly.

  He turned his head slowly toward Kael, fixing him with unusual intensity.

  Then, in a surprisingly gentle voice:

  “Kael… you are crying.”

  Kael raised a hand to his face.

  It was true.

  Tears were running down his cheeks — warm, bright tears that shimmered beneath the sun.

  He wiped them away quickly, a little embarrassed, unsure exactly where they had come from.

  But Dubium did not try to trace their origin.

  Instead, he resumed, his tone suddenly quick, almost feverish:

  “The work you brought me… is utterly fascinating. The most fascinating I have ever read. Every page… every sentence… is an abyss. I’ve read it a hundred times, and with each reading I find something to question. Something that enlightens me.”

  He began pacing again, eyes fixed on lines he already seemed to know by heart.

  Kael watched him, slightly dazed.

  A hundred times…? But… how long have I been asleep?

  “How long was I sleeping?” he asked.

  Dubium answered simply, without lifting his gaze from the book:

  “You must have been exhausted. You slept nearly sixteen hours.”

  “Sixteen hours?!” Kael repeated, rubbing his eyes. “Who sleeps sixteen hours?”

  He let his head fall back against the couch.

  “And you read that book over a hundred times in sixteen hours…?”

  Dubium did not respond immediately. He turned a page, brows furrowed, as if absorbed in a new paradox.

  Kael sighed, then gave a faint smile.

  “Right… of course. You’re a god. I tend to forget.”

  Dubium came to sit at the table, still absorbed in the book. He placed it before him, tapped the cover lightly with his fingertips, and said:

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “This work answers questions I have been asking myself for millennia.”

  He ran a hand across the binding, almost tenderly, then continued:

  “I do not believe everything it contains is true… But with the information it provides, my theory is validated. It illuminates areas of shadow I had never known how to cross.”

  Kael raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

  “I skimmed it earlier… Well, I read one page. But… what is it actually about? Because I landed straight on something about causality. Honestly, ironic, isn’t it?”

  He stood, stretched slowly — his muscles stiff from sixteen hours of sleep — then sat across from Dubium.

  The old man was still reading, feverishly. He turned the pages at a frightening speed, as if afraid the meaning might evaporate if he slowed down.

  Then suddenly, he closed the book with a soft sigh.

  Without a word, he poured a cup of tea for Kael, then one for himself.

  Kael took the cup… but did not drink. He kept staring at him, waiting.

  “So?” he asked softly. “I’m still waiting for an answer.”

  Dubium finally spoke.

  “This book, Kael… speaks of the universe in its entirety. It proposes a structured vision of the origin of all things. It speaks of a single God. Invisible. Absolute. Creator of the universe, of matter, of life, of time itself.”

  He paused, his fingers resting on the white cover.

  “It begins with a story of Creation: a world shaped in six days, light separated from darkness, the stars planted like markers in the sky, life rising from the sea, and finally man… created in the image of this God.”

  Kael said nothing. He listened, fascinated despite himself.

  Dubium continued, his tone lower:

  “Humanity falls. It disobeys. It loses itself. But this God does not abandon it. He speaks through prophets, traces a path, promises salvation. And then… a man appears. A man who would be both son of man and son of God. His name is Jesus.”

  He placed his hand flat on the book, as if to steady something within himself.

  “This Jesus moves through the ages. He teaches compassion, faith, forgiveness. He is betrayed, executed, and then… according to the account… returns to life. And the entire meaning of the book reorganizes around him. Like a knot. Like a point of resonance.”

  Dubium finally lifted his eyes to Kael.

  “It is… a book of history, poetry, war, law, mysticism, and faith. An imperfect book, written by human hands. And yet, it contains… astonishing intuitions about time, repetition, fall, redemption.”

  Kael blinked.

  “So… do you believe all that?”

  Dubium smiled faintly.

  “I believe that even error can carry within it a truth.”

  He resumed, as though he could not stop.

  “The passage that fascinated me most… is that of Adam and Eve.”

  He tapped the book gently, his gaze lost in an invisible line.

  “Two beings, innocent, perfect, living in a garden created for them. No pain, no death. And at the center of the garden… a tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

  He paused, eyes shining.

  “It is not a trap. Not a disguised punishment. It is a choice. A pure test. A single prohibition. And yet, they transgress it. Not out of hunger, but out of curiosity. Out of a desire to understand.”

  He smiled, almost moved.

  “The first error of humanity, according to this text, is not violence. It is not pride. It is thirst for knowledge.”

  He lifted his head, meeting Kael’s gaze.

  “They eat the fruit… and everything shifts. They become aware of themselves, of good, of evil, of time passing. They become… human. Limited. Mortal. And they are cast out of the Garden.”

  Silence.

  “And yet, it is that fault, that fracture, that allows the rest of the story to exist. Without the fall, no redemption. Without ignorance, no quest. Without the loop… no exit.”

  Kael frowned.

  “Wait… are you saying the story begins with a loop?”

  Dubium smiled.

  “Not a loop. A cyclical wound. The original fracture. The one each of us, in our own way, tries to mend.”

  Kael took a sip of tea, thought for a moment, then frowned.

  “So… if I sum it up in my own words: the fruit is the cause. And everything that follows — shame, the fall, the world, pain… those are the consequences.”

  He grimaced, uncertain of his own phrasing.

  “Well, that’s not very well put, but… you get the idea.”

  Dubium nodded slowly, attentive.

  Kael shrugged, slightly embarrassed by his improvised reasoning.

  “I mean, it’s always the same: you do one thing, just one, and bam. Everything chains together. Everything stacks up. And in the end, you’re stuck trying to understand what you did… with tools you didn’t even have at the start.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, thoughtful.

  “Maybe the fruit isn’t the problem. Maybe the problem is not knowing what to do with it.”

  Dubium smiled gently.

  “Or perhaps it is by eating the fruit… that one becomes capable of asking the question.”

  Kael settled deeper into his chair, the cup between his hands.

  “Honestly… if I’d been Adam or Eve, I wouldn’t have eaten the damn fruit.”

  Dubium arched an amused eyebrow.

  Kael shrugged.

  “Seriously. The more you know, the worse it gets. Layers, consequences, dilemmas… It never ends. You lift one truth, and ten more collapse behind it.”

  He paused, then added with a half-smile:

  “After thinking about it for two minutes… I think we’re happier when we’re stupid.”

  He looked up at Dubium, half-provocative, half-sincere.

  “The less you understand, the less you’re afraid. The less you know, the easier it is to breathe.”

  He set down his cup.

  “Maybe ignorance wasn’t a flaw. Maybe it was… a kind of peace.”